Just another blog about WoW Death Knights

Tag Archives: Unholy

Now that Unholy is viable for decent DPS in Dragon Soul, and is probably even better than frost for a lot of fights, one can ask if it is really useful to use a spec that includes Anti-Magic Zone (5/1/35) or if it is just better to go for the higher DPS specs like 7/1/33 or 5/3/33.

The Tooltip of Anti-Magic Zone reads: Places a large, stationary Anti-Magic Zone that reduces spell damage done to party or raid members inside it by 75%. The Anti-Magic Zone lasts for 10 sec or until it absorbs (10000 + 2 * AP) spell damage.

At level 85, raid buffed in Heroic Firelands gear, and considering that the proc from Fallen Crusader (+15% Strength) might or might not be up, the maximum theoretical absorb should be between 55-60k spell damage. It doesn’t seem like a lot to say the least… But there is a trick, and a big one! It is actually possible to absorb much more damage, and I will try to explain as simply as possible how it works, when it should be used, and why it is very important to spec into it.

There always seems to be some sort of confusion among raiders on how to choose a trinket based on the choices available. Trinkets are often itemized with a huge chunk of a particular stat that’s provided in the form of a proc that doesn’t have 100% up-time. They can also give some kind of bonus damaging attack that’s often hard to compare to regular stats. How can these items be compared? Well, although it requires a little bit more math than your regular armor or weapon slots, it is still straightforward and can easily be done in an excel spreadsheet.

The first thing to do when one wants to rank items for his/her particular spec, is to understand how are the different stats comparing to each other. For Death Knights, SimulationCraft is, in my opinion, a decent tool for that. After importing my own character into this simulator, it is possible to obtain the average DPS expected on a Patchwerk-type fight, and most importantly, the stat weights. For my character, with the gear I had at the time of writing this post (Mix of Heroic Firelands gear and some ilvl 397 items), the results are as follow: